Defense fuels Delaware Valley's success

MILFORD, Pa. — Five years ago, coaching middle school football, Jeff Krasluski came up with an idea that he thought might eventually work on the lacrosse field.

WILLIAM MONTGOMERY

MILFORD, Pa. — Five years ago, coaching middle school football, Jeff Krasluski came up with an idea that he thought might eventually work on the lacrosse field.

He was going to take the tough-minded trio of Garret Midlarsky, Gianni Gelormino and Sean Burkert and turn them into the central pieces of a lacrosse defense.

"I know their mentality. We strategically put them on defense," Krasluski said. "At first, they thought it was, 'I'm not good enough, that's why you put me on defense.' But these guys are hard-nosed guys. They understand the field and spatial awareness and they're aggressive and they communicate very well together. To see them grow over the last four years, it's been special."

They all picked up lacrosse as freshmen and eventually made their way to the varsity team. Now senior defensemen, Midlarsky, Gelormino and Burkert are part of the reason why Delaware Valley (10-0) has allowed a total of 20 goals.

After Saturday's game against Cornwall, a 3-1 victory, the players ran out and piled on goalie Connor Lamberton, who had made 13 saves. Lamberton is the last line of defense, but the players in front of him are doing the job in preventing shots on goal in the first place.

"We function as a unit," said Burkert. "It's unbelievable. It's almost telepathic how fast we can just react to each other and shut other teams down."

The Warriors have come a long way from their varsity debut six years ago, when the team finished 0-18. In fact, some of the players will go on to play in college. Gelormino will play at Vassar, and Burkert is set to compete for Alfred University.

"It's fair to say that every day, all of us are doing everything we can to get better," Gelormino said. "I've been playing, and I know they've been playing, in summer leagues, coach has been watching everything he can and going to seminars and reading books — every little thing we can do to get better."

This is the first year Delaware Valley has competed in the Wyoming Valley Lacrosse League in Pennsylvania. Previously, the school had competed as a member of Section 9, which also proved to be a major factor in why Delaware Valley made such a quick turnaround from 0-18 to undefeated.

"When we started in New York, we used those teams as the best competition we could play, which is why we're as good as we are now," Burkert said. "Our whole goal is the growth of the sport in our new district. We want the other teams to catch up to us, have the competition every year and have a dogfight for districts. That's how you want to play. You don't want to blow people out."

"It's kind of bittersweet," Krasluski said. "It's great that lacrosse is growing here, but to not play all the teams in Orange County that we've been playing over the past six years, we started getting destroyed by them and we started getting more competitive and knocking off a few for the first time in the last couple of years. We're fortunate to keep our relationship with them and we're going to try to continue to do that as long as we can."

Half of the regular season remains, but the Warriors are dreaming big for the next few weeks. For that shot at competing in the Pennsylvania playoffs, they can thank their coach. Five years ago, Krasluski had a vision for their talents and saw it through to fruition.

"The most fun part of defense is easily taking the guy in front of you and making it so he can't do anything and he has to pass the ball," said Midlarsky, a long stick midfielder. "He knows that if he gets the ball and he dodges on you the ball is going the other way, plain and simple. Defense is what's going to win us a championship."